Devices are known in the art which purport to grip a cable inserted therein and they are to some extent useful. The devices known to the inventor are, however, non-range taking and provide no means for insuring that the cable remains within the holder when subjected to impact or severe vibration or loss of tension in the cable, such as may occur when a pole is hit by a vehicle, when lines are crossed by fallen trees, or when violent gusty winds occur. The known devices employ a housing having a frusto-conical cavity therein within which a set of conical segments are free to move axially. The conical segments have a combined outer diameter which causes them to wedge against the housing at a predetermined minimum diameter, and when so wedged, the sides of the segment abut to form a cone with an axial bore therethrough. As will be appreciated, this structure imposes a strict limit on the cable size which can be properly gripped for a given device. Accordingly, prior practice has been to build a plurality of devices of varying size to handle a variety of cable sizes.
Yet another problem with the prior art are two opposite extremes which may occur in operation. One extreme occurs when the gripper elements become so tightly wedged in the housing that they cannot be removed, thus the device is not reusable. The other extreme occurs when the tension in the cable is lost and the grippers move into a larger volume inside the housing such that the gripping action is lost and the cable escapes the gripper or moves axially in the device. When tension is restored to the cable, obviously untoward results may occur.